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winter one,—at the commencement of a course 
of tillage in breaking up from lea, or at the close 
| of a course of tillage in returning to lea,—as 
either a substitutionary crop, or an intermediate 
crop, or a principal one,—and either only once 
at a time, or twice or oftener repeated. When 
land cannot be prepared in sufficient time for 
the turnip, it is yet ready for a crop of rape; 
when land is in too ungenial a condition for 
some other intended green crop, it may be ina 
suitable enough condition for rape; when land 
has been prepared for summer-fallow, yet is in- 
tended to be reserved for oats or barley in the 
following spring, it may be cropped in the inter- 
mediate time with rape; when land has been 
under early pease or under potatoes, and is not fit 
to be sown with winter wheat, it may be cropped 
with winter rape; and even, in many instances, 
when land is in ordinary rotation of alternate 
white and green crops, it may be advantageously 
sown with rape upon the ploughed stubble, and 
eaten off with sheep in March and the early part 
of April. An experiment was tried, nearly 20 
years ago, at Netherby in Cumberland, of sowing 
in July 120 acres of prime loamy land with rape 
in the laying down of permanent pasture. The 
ground was thoroughly cleaned and limed; the 
rape and the grass seeds were sown together ; 
and, as soon as the rape arrived at the proper 
stage of maturity, it was eaten off by sheep. A 
report of the experiment 8 years after says that 
it sueceeded, and that the land was then the 
best pasture in the country. 
The cultivation of rape for the production of 
oil is a widely different affair from the cultiva- 
tion of it asa forage plant. The most suitable 
varieties of it, as we showed in a former section, 
are different; and the effects upon the land are 
so exhausting, that the rape must take the place 
of a white crop ina rotation, and must not be 
repeated sooner than after an interval of 5 or 6 
years. But it is not suited to the coldness and 
moisture of the west coast of England and of 
most parts of Ireland; and it commonly yields 
so slender or precarious a compensation in even 
the most favourable parts of Britain, as to be 
suitable only in extraordinary circumstances or 
as an occasional crop. In the fens of Lincoln- 
shire and Cambridgeshire, as a first crop on bro- 
ken up land which has been long in grass and is 
of prime quality, it usually yields so great a pro- 
duce as from 40 to 50 bushels per acre of clean 
seed, and is generally found to be highly or suf- 
ficiently compensating; but on similar soils in 
other circumstances, or asa substitute for a white 
crop in the course of a rotation, it sometimes or 
often does not yield more than one-half of that 
produce, and is there, of course, of correspondingly 
small value. It may be sown, according to the 
variety and the situation, from the end of May 
till the end of August ; it may be sown broadcast 
at the rate of half a peck of seed per acre, but 
will do much better to be drilled; it should re- 
RAPE CAKE. 
ceive the same after-culture as when intended 
for a forage crop until the season of its passing 
into flower and seed; and if very luxuriant, it 
may more than once be slightly pastured by 
lambs when they are first taken from the ewes. 
The crop must not be cut till fully ripe, or about 
the month of June; and it should be cut while 
the dew is on it, and moved as little and gently 
as possible. It so easily sheds its seeds in con- 
sequence of the lower pods being ready to burst 
before the upper ones are full, that, if not very 
carefully managed, especially in unfavourable 
weather, a considerable portion of the produce 
will be lost; and, if the state of the weather will 
at all permit, it ought at once and promptly to be 
thrashed out in the field. In some parts of the 
Continent, where an oil-mill exists on the farm, 
the seed is conveyed thither and bruised imme- 
diately after being thrashed; but in England, it 
is generally spread out on the floor of a granary, 
and frequently turned over, till it become dry, 
and is then sold to the crushers who express the 
oil. The straw is often burned in the field; but 
ought always to be carried to the farm-yard and 
used for fodder and litter. The smaller twigs or 
branches are greedily eaten by either sheep or 
cattle or horses; and the thicker portions of the 
stems, or such parts of the entire straw as remain 
after being picked over by the cattle, are readily 
converted in the form of litter or with the aid of | 
swine into valuable manure——Lawson’s Agricul- 
turist’s Manual—Rham’s Dictionary of the Farm. 
—Knowledge Society's Outlines of Flemish Hus- 
bandry. — Knowledge Society’s Reports on Select 
Farms.—Oommunications to the Board of Agri- 
culture—Marshall’s County Reports—Irish Far- 
mers Journal—The Gardener's Gazeite.— Mill's 
Husbandry. — Dickson's Practical Husbandry.— 
Transactions of the Horticultural Society —Mawe. 
Johnson.— Doyle.— Low. 
RAPE CAKH, or Rare Dust. 
rape seeds after the expression of the oil. It 
originally forms a hard cake, but can at any 
time be readily reduced to powder. It is used 
on the Continent for feeding cows and pigs, in 
the same manner as linseed cake; and is much 
employed, both on the Continent and in Britain, 
as a rich or special manure. 
it are imported from the Continent into Britain ; 
and are various in appearance and quality, and 
obtained partly from the seeds of the winter 
rape, but more commonly from those of cole. 
The best kind, when new or pretty recent, has 
a yellowish-green colour, but becomes darker 
when long kept. 
Kivery cargo or large quantity of rape-cakes, 
ought, immediately on its arrival, if the weather 
be dry, or as soon after as dry weather occurs, to 
be stored in a warehouse on a dry floor, either 
wooden or earthen, and built up in heaps clear 
of the walls, so as not to draw damp from them ; 
and the place should be kept as free as possible 
The refuse of | 
Large quantities of | 
from the admission of humid air, or even from | 
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